CoHoN: A middleware for robots in heterogeneous communication environments with changing topology

Communication methods in modern robotic systems typically connect multiple sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, and embedded PCs. There are several ways in hard-and software to communicate inside and between robots. In many cases a communication middleware is used. Although a lot of middleware solutions are available, they either introduce communication overhead or are designed and optimized for a specific domain other than robotics. But robots also have very specific requirements that have to be taken into account. This paper introduces a concept for a communication middleware that is specialized for robotics which provides a failure-tolerant communication middleware that can communicate transparently with different kinds of communication hardware.